Time: Fri Dec 05 02:02:40 1997
To:
From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: "D-Notice" under British Official Secrets Act
Cc:
Bcc: sls, friends
References:
<snip>
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>
>THE FOSTER DEATH: U.S. JOURNALISTS OPERATING UNDER A "D-NOTICE?"
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>
>In *Above Top Secret* (ISBN: 0-688-09202-0), author Timothy Good
>describes a British government mechanism known as a "D-Notice":
>
> A D-Notice is a formal letter of request circulated
> confidentially to newspaper editors, warning them that an
> item of news, which may be protected under the [British]
> Official Secrets Act, is regarded by the defense
> authorities as a secret affecting national security. It
> has no legal authority and can only be regarded as a letter
> of advice or request, but it warns that "whether or not any
> legal sanction would attach to the act of publication,
> publication is considered to be contrary to the national
> interest."
>
> ...since a D-Notice warns an editor that publication of a
> given news item may violate the [Official Secrets] Act, the
> effect is similar to censorship.
>
>Does the United States have some sort of similar mechanism? Has
>the U.S. government ever contacted prominent news outlets,
>suggesting that pursuit of a particular story could adversely
>affect national security? At least one instance comes to mind:
>ABC News had reportedly been set to air a story on how the U.S.
>government seems to have had prior knowledge that the Murrah
>Building in Oklahoma City was about to be bombed. The story was
>pulled at the last minute, however, reportedly due to concerns
>that its airing might greatly weaken and even topple the U.S.
>government.
>
>In "The Secret Report and the Death Warrant" (CN 9.02), Sherman
>H. Skolnick describes how the late Vincent Foster was employed
>for years by the National Security Agency (NSA), and may have
>been doing some "freelance" work on the side:
>
> The report goes on to show that since the early 1980s,
> Foster held the equivalent rank of Military General with
> the super-secret satellite spying and code-cracking
> operation of the U.S., the National Security Agency [NSA].
> Foster continued this work for the few months before his
> death in the Clinton White House. Travelling for NSA,
> hundreds of thousands of miles, Foster was the master-mind
> of an NSA Project that tracked wire transfers between banks
> worldwide -- trillions of dollars per day, of banks both
> friend and foe. Because of being on top of this
> enterprise, Foster never believed that project might
> someday find his purported foreign secret coded accounts
> that could finger him as having violated various American
> espionage laws.
>
>Skolnick's allegations are corroborated in a classic series of
>reports by J. Orlin Grabbe, "Allegations Regarding Vince Foster,
>the NSA, and Banking Transactions Spying." [1] Further support
>for claims that Vince Foster was a high-ranking NSA official
>appear in a story in the May 15, 1996 Washington Times newspaper
>("Spy Agency Holds Large File On Foster," by Bill Gertz.)
>Referring to revelations contained in the April 24, 1996 issue of
>Strategic Investment newsletter, the Washington Times article
>reports that "secret documents held by the electronic spying
>agency [NSA] indicate Mr. Foster's death was a matter of 'highly
>sensitive national security.'"
>
>There's that word: "national security." Was Foster's death a
>"national security" matter and, for that reason, were prominent
>news outlets in the U.S. given some version of the "D-Notice?"
>That would explain why most mainstream journalists here have been
>so remarkably blind regarding inconsistencies surrounding
>Foster's supposed "suicide." Furthermore, given that Foster was
>a high-ranking NSA employee and had apparently violated his trust
>by engaging in espionage, it ought to be considered whether
>Foster had been secretly sentenced to death by some sort of
>secret tribunal. A clue to this possibility is found in Dr.
>Stanton Friedman's book, *Top Secret/Majic* (ISBN:
>1-56924-741-2). Friedman writes about mere =civilians= and
>the possible extreme penalty they can be subject to for
>violations of "national security":
>
> Civilians unfortunate enough to be caught up in the
> security web were made to sign silence agreements ending
> with the phrase "upon penalty of death" according to a
> witness who very quietly spoke to me about it after a
> lecture.
>
>If a civilian can potentially be secretly found "guilty" and
>sentenced to death, then the same fate could definitely await
>high-ranking NSA officials who violate their trust and engage in
>espionage.
>
>But why, if Foster had been secretly sentenced to death, was the
>sentence executed so sloppily? Surely NSA could have done a
>neater job of terminating the errant Foster. Widely reported as
>a deep-level cohort of Foster was Hillary Rodham Clinton. If Ms.
>Clinton had been involved in Foster's alleged espionage, then a
>poorly executed termination of Foster might have been designed to
>embarrass the First Lady, weaken her influence, and thereby
>incidentally punish her as well.
>
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>
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